Friday, May 24, 2013

Down Lough Derg

Down Lough Derg from Portumna Castle Harbour to Dromineer. It was a bit choppy so took two hours - longer than expected because we had to tack to avoid beam-on discomfort. The wind was more westerly than expected, so a long reach from Cloondavaun Bay and again from Coose. I started the cooking on the way down, just after I received an email saying there was a comment on this blog. Another Rampart 32 owner! What a thrill. The photo revealed a sister for Winter Solstice, an older but very recognizable version, kept in Wales. So hello Roland!

Nearly lost the dinner to the floor only once as Joe turned the boat to tack the other way. Dogs perked up for a minute before resuming their 'Oh God, this again', looks. They like things to be nice and calm.

We tied up against the wall for the sake of the dogs and rocked gently. There's quite a flow comes into the harbour through holes in the harbour wall, so less sheltered than it might be. The sun went in.

Next morning I was up first to take the dogs out. The wind didn't seem too bad from the beach.

But it had been an earplugs night. The aft line was creaking creaking until we could bear it no more. Unusual. It's normally the bow line or a fender that keeps us awake.

The offending rope:

So off we went, Aoife and Frankie and I, roll of plastic bags in my pocket - a new business for the plastics trade selling bags for picking up dog shit. Not very ecologically sound, but what can you do? In Dromineer they had these signs:

Which is very necessary. They also have these (I love the contrasting pictures of the dogs):

Unlike in Counties Galway and Clare where they've taken away all the rubbish bins (except in Mountshannon) and you have to bring it home with you. Not pleasant with these little packages. I usually find somewhere dense and green like a bunch of nettles or the middle of a spreading bush to empty the contents so at least all you have is a tied up bag.

So fair play to Tipperary.

When one dog rolls...

So does the other...

We moved the boat briefly into the floating pontoons to take advantage of some electricity left in one of the meters - to hoover! Yes, the new device is on board and vacuums up dog hairs beautifully. Maybe this will be the year of the clean boat (until the novelty wears off).

Then a quick sprint across to Dromaan. Nice and sheltered there. We'd planned to go there the previous night, but when we left in the car we noticed a boat which had been in Portumna at the weekend as we were having a barbecue, running its engines and filling the harbour with fumes. I made the mistake of asking would he be doing it for long...

A new form of harbour hogging:

Nothing like parking sideways on and taking up two places.

Does this count as cruelty to hounds? I noticed these blotches when taking the morning walk. Red wine?

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About Me

Two blogs now.
Floating Boater is mostly about our life on the waterways of Ireland on Winter Solstice, our timber cruiser. She's a Rampart 32 built in 1969 in Southampton. She was one of the last this size to come out of the Rampart boatyard – plastic was the material of the future. So a classic but with a definite sixties bent.
Every summer we take off on the astonishingly varied waterways of Ireland and enter another, sweeter world. In between I tend my vegetables, look after our acre or so of garden in East Clare, write poetry, and teach and play flute. I occasionally have to do other paid work too.
We're on the move from our present house and I have a new acre to begin. So Mucky Fingernails is the gardening wing. It's a record of the creation of a new garden, starting from an open field.